The Fried Chicken and Goblin King Affair
by Darkwood Princess
Summary: What's said is said. Illya Kuryakin realizes that wishes and late night fried chicken have strange consequences. Dreams are what we make of them and a crystal is never just a crystal.


AN: College and life have definitely curtailed the time I have to devote to writing. If you're still reading my stuff, I promise that I have not abandoned my stories, I just have less time to write. As for this, well it's probably the weirdest crossover ever. I recently watched Jim Henson's Labyrinth and the desire to write crossover fanfiction, mixed with a Man from UNCLE binge resulted in my little sister giving me the help needed to bridge the two. Consider it an early Halloween gift, a crack fic for simple enjoyment.

The Fried Chicken and Goblin King Affair

To say that Illya Kuryakin liked food was akin to claiming that Napoleon merely liked girls.

But to say that he understood why Americans claimed that heavy food before midnight gave one nightmares was another thing entirely. It was illogical, considering that nightmares were mental manifestations, unrelated to digestion, but he had often heard his partner swear off of pizza or red meats after a certain hour unless on a mission.

He had considered it a silly superstition until the night he binged on fried chicken from the latest fast food chain to open in the Big Apple and was treated to the absolutely strangest dream he had ever been unfortunate enough to witness. Which was saying quite a bit actually. It had started with simple curiosity, whose results were in more ways than one never quite so simple. He had been curious about this Colonel Sanders who sold fried food. Generally Colonels were not cooks or if they were, they weren't good ones for that matter. So of course he had to liberally sample his wares, just to test them of course.

The evening afterwards had proceeded like almost any other to the point of near boredom and Illya, belly full, turned in with the intention of getting up early to complete an experiment on one of THRUSH's weirder devices. Who would have thought you could pack an entire directory of agents on a bubble gum wrapper? Furthermore who would want to besides a megalomaniacal organization that wouldn't consider agents mixing the gum with other candies and tossing it out.

What could he say, good help was hard to find.

And somehow, this otherwise ordinary evening took a turn for the weird when Napoleon knocked on his door at what the clock proudly proclaimed was 2:45 AM to announce that he was spending the rest of the night in Illya's apartment due to Arianna Styles of the secretarial pool kicking him out when she found out that he'd had lunch with Emma something or other instead of her.

Illya valued his sleep and, while he normally tolerated his partner's idiosyncrasies, freshly woken Illya Kuryakin when not woken for a real purpose was seven kinds of disagreeable.

It was then that he said the right words, in that half-awake state that suspends the sleeper between the memories of childhood and the presence of adulthood, his muttered comment escaping into the ether beyond recalling.

"Yes, yes, stay, but sometimes I wish the goblins would just take you and give me one night's peace."

What's said is said.

As Napoleon turned to head out and take the couch his curious murmur of "Goblins?" was lost in the rush of the windows blowing open as the cold night air invaded the apartment, bringing with it a shining shower of glitter and a wild visitor.

"It seems that some one still believes in us after all." The stranger's blond hair stood in spikes, feathery tendrils whipping back and forth in the gale that tossed his dark cape and continued to spiral through the room.

Illya's was awake in an instant, his gun trained on the intruder before he fully registered what was going on.

"Uhm, look pal, I think you're in the wrong apartment. If you leave now, there'll be no hard feelings." Napoleon, who had come unarmed was eyeing the intruder with trepidation, wondering how the psycho could have got in through a fourth floor window in an eight story apartment building.

Illya couldn't believe his eyes and knew with a sinking feeling that the Solo charm was not going to work this time.

"Such a pity that you don't recognize me, Napoleon Solo, when I know you so well." The stranger's smile was jagged, and his eyes, mismatched and glowing in the darkness, took in the austere room with a connoisseurs delight.  
>"Excuse me, but I don't believe we've met?"<p>

"We haven't? You aren't the same Napoleon Solo who wished for protection from bullies when you were nine and hiding behind the dumpster of your vapid elementary school? The same Napoleon who wished that someone would notice him when he stayed with his Ambassadorial grandfather at 16, anyone, just so that he wouldn't be alone in a world of faces? And how can I forget the time you wished for what one cannot grant, the time you wished her back, when she was beyond the veil?" Light glinted off the dull leather armor as Napoleon's face drained to the ashen color of eggshells. The man stepped forward, far into Napoleon's personal space. " Don't know me? You're lying. You may not know me by name, or more likely have forgotten it in the endless pursuit of adulthood, but I have always been there, just one step behind the lost."

Turning to Illya, who still had his weapon trained on him, he laughed.

"Such a clever boy, but you've always been that way Illya. Always one step ahead of the others, always so convinced that science and math, intelligence and perseverance will win the day. And yet, you called on us, on me, the Goblin King, so I'm here to fulfill my role." His fingers spun through the suddenly still air, drawing a shimmering orb out of the nothing of night.

"Your dreams for your partner, a fair exchange no? Happiness for you and for him. He'd enjoy life much more as a Goblin anyways. That is until I bog him of course, but it need not come to that." The wan light of the streetlights cast slithering shadows all around him and Illya, against his will found his eyes drawn to the pearlescent orb in the man's hand. For a long moment he examined his dreams, and came to realize that they all involved his new U.N.C.L.E family, a family which did not exist without Napoleon. Drawing on his memories of the old stories, Illya cast around for a loophole.

It came to him in an instant, with the timeless ease of things merely shifted in the mind but never forgotten.

"You cannot take Napoleon. He is not a child."

The man's eyes narrowed, surprised that the pragmatic Russian was not willing to take the easy way out. A fake smile graced his features, as he twirled the crystal for a moment. "Everyone is a child in some respect. Have you not seen how he treats the fairer sex? Only a child reaches for more when what he has is perfectly good."

" I am also not his guardian. I have no power to give him away."

"Do you not treat him like a brother? Does that not give you power?"

Illya felt himself sweating, trying to counter the Goblin King's arguments. He had been a figment of his imagination, the boogeyman every child was warned of when they misbehaved. Many a young one had toed the line for fear the goblins would take them away to be one of them, away from their families and friends. He couldn't doom Napoleon to that, Napoleon who... didn't know this story. Napoleon who had not grown up with superstitious tales of goblins, who hadn't recognized the man before him when he had swooped in.

Napoleon who didn't believe. And after all, what was belief but the ability to give power to something or someone? Wasn't it true that all stories ran on belief?

"He doesn't believe in you." Illya's voice was serenely calm in the surreal quiet. " For all Napoleon knows you are but another THRUSH agent with a fancy new toy to try out on us. Our pasts are openly known to our enemies and you are no different."

And Napoleon, blessed Napoleon, nodded fervently because it was a much easier belief to swallow, that the being in front of him was an enemy from this world, just another person out to stop UNCLE, and not some villain from the old stories he had never heard.

A beat of silence and then…

"You have no power over him."

The room exploded in a whirl of light and color and Illya woke up, the weak fall sun splashing across his face as he glanced wildly around the room in search of Napoleon and ,despite his mind's rational protests, the Goblin King.

Grasping his communicator, Illya quickly commed Napoleon, heaving a sigh of relief when a half-asleep American groggily asked him what was so important that he needed to be woken up early on a Saturday.

It had all been a dream.

A wild, probably fried chicken induced dream.

And if Illya avoided the words 'wish' and 'goblin' and quietly checked more often on Napoleon, while simultaneously boycotting fried chicken for several months, no one was the wiser.

Except, perhaps, the barn owl outside his window.

AN: Weirdest crossover ever, right? I hope this was enjoyable!


End file.
